If you were alive during the cold war the words “communism” or “socialism” can easily bring back memories of the stories we heard of the bleak life behind the Iron Curtain. I think the words “democratic socialism” which we hear on the political scene quite a lot today call up those memories for a lot of people. Memories of stories of a system where you lived where the State told you, worked where the State told you, and the State took and doled out all the goods. During those days we heard the stories of the want, the poverty of both material goods and of spirit that was life as we heard about it within communist countries. But the democratic socialism being talked about today is not your father’s socialism. This picture sums up what we in the U.S. heard about socialism behind the Iron Curtain:

In spite of all the efforts to equate democratic socialism as practiced in Scandinavia and as advocated by Bernie Sanders with the bleak conditions of life in the Iron Curtain countries, that comparison just isn’t reality. But the detractors from the messages from democratic socialists today don’t seem to be able to grasp the differences. Often the issue seems to be haggling over the word “socialism”. It would be great if a different word had been pulled up when ideas about universal healthcare, state funded (tax-payer funded) higher education and other current “democratic socialist” ideas began being espoused. But, as the ideas have to do with the well-being of our society, socialism seems a pretty descriptive term, even if the new socialism has only a distant relationship with socialism ala Marx/Lenin.

If someone has visited Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, (I don’t mention Norway because I haven’t yet visited Norway) and paid attention to how things were working, the term democratic socialism doesn’t take a lot of explanation. It has nothing to do with soviet Russia or communist China. It has everything to do with a healthy population, living in healthy communities. It’s not about the State owning everything, millions in poverty, having massive parades of tanks and missiles and turning in your neighbor for stealing bread. Come to think of it, substitute “predatory capitalists” for “the State” and that pretty much resembles what’s happening in the U.S., not Scandinavia.

What today’s Scandinavian democratic socialism is about is the majority of people who are engaging in capitalist, private enterprise businesses, of the workers in all the various industries, agreeing that there should be certain guarantees to protect the material well-being of all the citizens. This isn’t “warm and fuzzy” thinking. People in Scandinavia, from what I’ve seen, are expected to work to support themselves and contribute, via taxation, to the social benefits: universal healthcare, publicly funded higher education, public sports and music opportunities, pretty pervasive public transportation, and of course fire and police services to name a few. Along with that there are the unemployment and welfare benefits for those that need them. “Need” being the operative word. From what I’ve seen, thinking “I don’t want to work, take care of me.”, doesn’t qualify as need.

Democratic socialism, as practiced in Scandinavia, does mean people in towns and cities actually experience a substantial return for their tax dollars. What a novel idea. They don’t let their government spend it all on bonuses, extravagant salaries and retirements, extravagant “defense” and other government contracts and cronyism.

What I’ve personally seen this system deprive a people of are: bankruptcies from medical expenses, wasted talent because one can’t afford higher education, being trapped in a job because the one you really want doesn’t offer medical benefits, seeing people sleeping on the street and in doorways (for the most part). It seems that thinking in terms of having a healthy society (along with having a healthy personal life and bank account) shows itself in other ways also: people being more conscientious about not littering, people respecting each other on the street to name a couple. Little things? Not when they don’t exist within a culture.

The other thing the E.U. has brought to these countries are immigrants and refugees. Immigrants and refugees these individual countries may not have admitted before. Of course the immigrants and refugees are often coming from countries despoiled by western corporations. So…what can we learn from this? On a more recent trip to Helsinki I was saddened to see some people sleeping in doorways and much more litter in the street than I had ever seen before. It was kind of like seeing a beautiful woman show up to the party in a soiled dress.

However, western style cutthroat capitalism is insidiously finding it’s way into these countries, it seems especially since the formation of the E.U. Businesses are starting to “offshore” production, the idea of wanting to be a billionaire, as opposed to just having a really nice lifestyle, seem to be creeping in. “It’s all about me” thinking seems to be finding a foothold.

The insidious infection of “me, me, me, it’s all about me” being pushed by many in the movies, TV shows, music, magazines, even by sports celebrities is a particular challenge to democratic socialism in Scandinavia today. Are Scandinavians immune from contagious narcissism and greed?

As mentioned above, democratic socialism as being touted today is not your father’s socialism. There needs to be a new definition in the dictionary, and, in fact, that change is in process. I found this in Merriam-Webster online:

“In the many years since socialism entered English around 1830, it has acquired several different meanings. It refers to a system of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control, but the conception of that control has varied, and the term has been interpreted in widely diverging ways, ranging from statist to libertarian, from Marxist to liberal. In the modern era, “pure” socialism has been seen only rarely and usually briefly in a few Communist regimes. Far more common are systems of social democracy, now often referred to as democratic socialism, in which extensive state regulation, with limited state ownership, has been employed by democratically elected governments (as in Sweden and Denmark) in the belief that it produces a fair distribution of income without impairing economic growth.”

Of course even “extensive state regulation” is going to send some dyed-in-the-wool individualists into a spin. And, truth be told, “extensive state regulation” and “oppression” are cousins which are known to sometimes travel together.

This brings us to the inescapable reality that no matter what social/economic system a people employ in their attempt at creating and maintaining a civilization, ultimately whether that civilization succeeds or fails depends upon the wisdom and the intent of the people themselves.

Which, while wisdom, intent, and knowledge are not necessarily the same thing, it is still a pretty good argument for publicly funded higher education. Because, the more we learn about how things function here on this Earth, the more it is becoming apparent that our fates our interrelated. We ignore the well-being of our fellow humanity and our environment at our own peril.

We in the U.S., and elsewhere, hear and read a lot about “freedom”. It seems everyone wants it, some want all they can get of it, the more the better. It sounds alright at first blush, right? What can possibly be wrong with lots of freedom? And let’s throw liberty in there as well.

Actually, a lot can be wrong with too much freedom. Perhaps it’s better to state that a lot can go wrong with too much freedom. When I want the freedom to choose my own vocation, to pursue higher education, to access medical care, to travel where and when I want and am able to, to open my own business, live where I choose and am able to, to read what I want and to express my viewpoints freely, to marry or not marry, to choose my spouse, these freedoms are some of the more obvious ones most, if not all, of us want. Maybe these are the freedoms that come to mind when we see or hear the word “freedom”.

But, unfortunately, this isn’t the case with everyone.

Some see freedom from a different perspective. They interpret freedom as the freedom to engage in what are essentially predatory business practices. The freedom to pollute the environment. The freedom to misrepresent products and services. The freedom to oppress others. As absurd as it may seem to many of us, some interpret their freedom as the freedom to engage in tyranny; allowing them to take away freedoms from others. Of course there is a difference between “freedom” and “power”. Some would say that tyrants are exercising power, not freedom, when they oppress others. Actually it’s some of both, but true, it’s mostly power.

However, at some point in their rise to power as a tyrant, that person was most likely doing so exercising the freedoms the people who were to become their victims, gave to them. Freedoms like freedom of speech, the freedom to assemble, the freedom to acquire armament, and if not involved in it themselves, most tyrants seem to make alliances with those busily exercising their freedom to engage in predatory business practices.

Interestingly, some of the freedoms tyrants customarily take away from others are the very ones that allowed them to come to power. They include: freedom of speech, movement, assembly, to own armament, and various freedoms associated with financial/business dealings. And we can be sure tyrants give little or no freedom for the public to view government meetings. It seems freedom is great until a sociopath or psychopath discovers a way to exploit it.

So what’s the answer? None of us want to give up our basic freedoms, at least no one I know.

But neither do we want to keep “bumping into doors” like children playing hide and seek with blindfolds on…do we?

Somehow, there is a reality in which freedom is tempered with responsibility, compassion, and wisdom that is the answer. Perhaps part of the key is to be found in the Buddhist “Middle Way”? In the reality that within moderation we find a path to community harmony?

When we see our economic resources being drained from our lives and our communities; when we see our air, water and earth becoming polluted; when we see essential goods and services being priced out of reach of the average person; I feel safe in saying that we can be assured we have allowed somebody to take criminal advantage of the freedoms we desired for them.

(Add. 11/9/2018) We need leaders, of industry and of government, who have genuine humility and who recognize that all the benefits and blessings of civilization and progress that we enjoy are the result of the work of millions throughout many centuries. That all these millions had and have dreams and hopes for a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, for their descendants. To ignore and negate these hopes and dreams is to ignore and negate the foundation upon which all progress has relied.

This is a “laundry list” of things which, if put into effect, would go a long way toward effectively stabilizing human culture, re-humanizing humanity, doing away with war, decreasing the prevalence of many illnesses, and making life worth living! None of these, except one (I won’t say which one), are my original ideas. They are from people who have studied the issues and weighed the related factors. As I have accumulated them over years I apologize that I do not cite the source. In the interest of brevity I have sometimes combined what were originally separate ideas but which dovetail nicely together.

A three day work week with a living wage.

Abolish the stock market. Keep companies in the hands of their founders and workers (employee ownership). Let the consumers decide via their purchases, or lack thereof, when a company’s product is no longer desired.

New ideas for products/companies can be financed via bank loans, personal loans or the sale of bonds. All at a reasonable rate of interest and able to be paid off.

Eliminate speculation in agricultural or any other products. This only artificially raises prices thereby fueling inflation. (Essentially do away with a “casino economy”.)

All industrial or other waste which poses a threat to the health of our environment must be discontinued or treated in such a fashion as to effectively neutralize any threat it may pose.

Legalize the production, sale and use of all natural substances which may be categorized as “drugs”. These include marijuana, coca, poppies and their derivatives. No prescription needed for these substances. In order to purchase these substances a person must have a card indicating they have completed an introductory class of at least 3 hrs. in duration about the potential dangers and benefits of each substance they wish to be allowed to purchase. Including tobacco and alcohol.

Re-institute regulations around the number of television stations, radio stations, newspapers and other media outlets that any one person or corporation may own.

Via regulations affecting banks, arms manufacturers and other government contractors, remove the the profit motive from war.

Make the dissemination of false and/or misleading information by elected and/or appointed government officials/employees a criminal offense (if it isn’t already) and enforce it.

Restrict election financing. Cap the dollar amount any one candidate can spend during an election campaign. Make it a felony with significant penalties for any person, corporation or foreign nation, or any agent thereof, to give donations, gifts, or make promises of future financial/material gain to any elected or appointed government official/employee. Or for any elected or appointed government official and/or employee to receive such donations or gifts.

Maintain and adequately fund community based (not private) and regulated police forces, fire departments, schools, parks, hospitals, ambulance/EMT services (universal healthcare) and other services. Such as concert and sports venues as a community desires and can support.

Income from concerts, sporting events, etc, above and beyond that used to pay workers, performers, athletes, etc., should go to public coffers and to fund public services and infrastructure.

Establish and enforce both a minimum and maximum personal income. The minimum income would insure basic housing, food and essentials for all. There could be some work requirement (public service) upon those receiving it. The maximum income would include income from all sources combined. This would be in force for all people regardless of profession. The maximum income should be no more than 7 times the minimum wage (not the minimum income which may be slightly less than the minimum wage).

While in a rough draft format, as mentioned above this is at least a partial “laundry list” of actions which, if instituted, would serve to stabilize and re-humanize our cultures and our world.

For the next few weeks, months, years (?), I am going publish short commentaries on what’s happening in the world rather than longer essays. My goal is to publish one a week, on Saturday mornings. I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read, “liked” and/or commented on articles on my blog!

A lot of (most?) people in the U.S. have played “Monopoly” at some time. The board game that’s designed to produce a winner and losers in an imaginary battle to acquire wealth. There is maneuvering for advantage, developing properties, lucky and unlucky roles of the dice. In the end someone bankrupts everyone else and owns it all. Then everyone can put the game away and head to the kitchen for snacks. That’s the part that’s missing in real life.
As in the game, in real life most (all?) people contribute in some way to building up and maintaining our communities. Most contribute throughout most of their lifetime. Building, serving, performing tasks meant to help keep the community vibrant. Unfortunately, these days it is happening within a system that is increasingly resembling the board game: designed to produce a relatively few big winners and lots of losers. Because we live in a finite system, there cannot be unbelievably extravagant winners without a whole lot of losers.
In the U.S. it hasn’t always been this way. Regulations against monopolies, a progressive tax system, wages and benefits people could thrive on, social safety nets and other safeguards kept the playing field more balanced; viable for the majority of, if not all, people. Then, those with more wealth began to find ways to manipulate the system. The regulations and safeguards which previously existed to protect the well-being of the whole have been, and are being, dismantled. This is leading to increasing economic imbalance with all the attendant debilitating effects on the general population that one can expect, even predict. We’re now seeing individuals with more wealth than millions of others. Others who have also been contributing.
The system needs repair. We need to restore lost safeguards. We need greater community mindedness. We need greater recognition of our inherent interdependence.

Update, 6/15/18: The best laid plans of mice and men and all that. I thought this was a good idea at the time, however, life has intervened and this plan for my blog did not materialize. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing in terms of blogging these days. I am certainly in a period of transition in my life. To everyone who has read my blog at some time, maybe “liked” it or commented; thank you! I hope to be more actively involved at some time in the future…

We read or hear every now and then about someone “going down a rabbit hole”. That is no doubt an allusion to Alice in Wonderland (Or Alice Through the Looking Glass) and a young girl’s journey into a fantastic, somewhat disorienting world. These days “going down a rabbit hole” is most often used to describe someone who is delving into information having to do with conspiracies, manipulations of the public consciousness. Often these people may also be described as being “on the fringe”, nut jobs or nut cases, conspiracy theorists, or even lunatics. However, is this really the case? Are the people who delve into such information, trying to discern what is or isn’t real, actually going down a rabbit hole? Or, are they trying to climb out of one?

It certainly seems many people live in one of two ways: Either blindly, unquestioningly accepting the information they are handed by “the authorities” and adjusting their lives accordingly. Or, some do feel, suspect, things really aren’t what they have been told they are, but the prospect of trying to peer into the darkness is too frightening. These folks then continually seek other people and institutions which will reinforce the status quo and, at least temporarily, soothe the uneasiness which lies below the surface of their lives.

Then there are the people who don’t, can’t, fit into either of these groups. People whose consciousness, whose intuitions about our world are persistently and relentlessly sending them alerts: something doesn’t feel right, something doesn’t make sense when analyzed using all the available evidence. These people often feel like the proverbial square peg in a round hole. So these people read, watch documentaries, talk with others. Not just the books, videos and others that will reinforce the information that is already being mass-produced and presented repeatedly on all the mainstream media. These people welcome all the information they can get their hands on. Including the material being presented on the six o’clock news and the front page. These folks welcome the alternative perspectives, the “outside the box” reasoning, and all the facts, all the evidence, they can find. No matter where it may come from and, more importantly, no matter where it may lead.

It is important to note the critical distinction between “welcoming” of information and “accepting” information. One, the welcoming, is the act of opening one’s senses, one’s mind, to input. Accepting information is the act of internalizing, assimilating, the information as true and accurate. When we do this we are doing more than simply restructuring our mental, abstract concepts about whatever the information pertains to. We are actually directing our brain to arrange our neural connections in such a way that the information becomes “hardwired*” into our neural processing patterns. This is an organic process which requires time, energy and effort on the part of our body, our brain. Our brain is building an organic network of thought, reasoning patterns which become part and parcel of our conscious processes. These concepts, true or false, become the matrix, the foundational fabric of our thinking processes.

In between the “welcoming” and the “accepting” what should exist is a critical, analytical process of vetting the information. What too often happens is that merely the fact that somebody in a position of culturally recognized “authority” spoke or wrote the words passes as vetting information. Is it that millions of people in the U.S. and around the world are too complacent, to think, to research for themselves? Or is there more to it than that? People around the world are often required to expend such a large amount of their time and energy in just striving to keep themselves sheltered and fed that, maybe, there just isn’t enough energy to go around? To look at this phenomenon from the perspective of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we can’t do too much on the higher levels of our lives when we’re unsatisfied with and/or expending all our efforts on the lower levels of the Hierarchy. However, no matter what the reason(s) may be, if we aren’t critically analyzing the important happenings in our world, some of our oversights are going to affect us more than others!

*Back to the “hardwiring” our brain is busily involved with. This “hardwiring” is not immutable. Just as these neural circuits were formed via our acceptance of, our assimilation of, information into our belief system; our working concept of reality can be reformed/reshaped in the same manner. But it takes time. Our brain’s neural network is not just a series of “off/on” switches. It is a living organ and change requires time and energy. When we construct complex concepts in our minds we are employing an army of neurons. Some of them are carrying data more central to the concept, some are carrying data more peripheral. Some are doing the work of associating one concept with another. Our brain doesn’t operate like a military drill field where one central command can result in hundreds or thousands of soldiers making an instantaneous change of direction. Our brain, our thought/neural constructs, change via many recursive visits to the subject. Slowly, gradually, change begins to become pervasive throughout our neural network. Sometimes it may take years, decades, for an intention for change to have thoroughly replaced the pre-existing concept(s). To try to change too much, too quickly, can be a traumatic event for the organic neurology involved. It can result in mental illness, and I am told, even death.

That’s why we don’t want to beat ourselves up when we find ourselves falling down on resolutions we make. Our neurology just doesn’t respond in an instantaneous, pervasive manner. It is also why we do not want to “program” ourselves or allow ourselves to be programmed with faulty, inaccurate, untrue information. It is not in the best interests of our species to have to engage in major conceptual changes. It takes a lot of time and energy away from being able to cope with the “here and now”. It is profoundly better to have good information to begin with and to be able to build increasingly complex, increasingly sound conceptual networks over time.

Human kind is probably the only species on Earth in which adults of the species will knowingly lie to their young. Of course, sometimes the adults who are transmitting false, inaccurate information to their young aren’t doing it intentionally. They are doing it because they themselves have accepted false, inaccurate information. Information which was handed to them by an “authority” sometime, someplace during their lives. This false, inaccurate information might be thought of as parasites which have been introduced to the family, dressed up, and have taken up residence, attempting to influence successive generations. Kind of like a horror movie.

When we’re under the influence of false, inaccurate information one can think of it as living at the bottom of a rabbit hole: in the dark.

For decades the American public has been living under the influence of lies. Lies coming from the White House, the Pentagon, and Congress. Lies being regurgitated by much of the media. The lies have gotten so deep, going back decades; so much has been built on top of those lies, those in power must cringe at the thought of the public ever widely knowing the truth. As George H.W. Bush said to Sarah McLendon, a Texas journalist: “Sarah, if the American people ever find out what we have done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us.” That was in 1992. The corruption, lies and abuses, the darkness being cast over our understanding of our world, have only gotten deeper since then. The Kennedy assassinations, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Oklahoma City bombing, MK Ultra, 9/11, these heinous actions, actions which the American people have been lied to regularly and repeatedly about, are only the tip of the iceberg. Financial abuses, wars, economic disparity, the list of ways the American public has suffered as a result of the lies is long and grievous. Because I live in the U.S., events in the U.S. are what I am most aware of. However, corruption and abuse of the public by those in high office is by no means limited to the U.S.

So, in reality, those seeking the truth about these things aren’t frivolously going down the proverbial rabbit hole, they’re determinedly trying to climb out of one.

Why do I use Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs so often in my articles? Because it informs us of a universal key to a successful life as an individual and as a culture.

Culture. We all need one to live. However, if and when that culture becomes too rigid, too intolerant, it stops being the supportive, nurturing, positive context we all need for whole, healthy lives. We human beings are complex in our make-up, in how it is that we experience our world, our environment, and in how we, as individuals, want to respond and behave within it. Each of us, while we do all share an essential common core of basic needs: water, food, air, shelter, love…, as complex beings are also very different in many ways.

We all experience and relate to our world in a somewhat different manner. Some people are more oriented toward an auditory experience of the world. Some the visual, or the tactile. And there are many other aspects of our lives which we all approach in different measure, with varying degrees of passion. We all have available to us the realities of logic, mathematics, healing/medicine, art, architecture, music, taste/food, physical capabilities; balance, strength, motion, sensuality. There are so very many aspects of our lives and our world which we all can and do find ourselves drawn to, interested in, to varying degrees. And they are all equally valid*. What we find ourselves naturally drawn to is the path we need, as an individual living organism with both physical and spiritual components. The path which will lead us to realizing our individual developmental journey in this life. It is, in fact our developmental imperative. And, again, they are all equally valid*.

This reality, of individual developmental imperatives, while so common sensical and simple at it’s base, has profound implications for us within our cultures and interpersonal relationships. Currently, in many cultures, there is an expectation, sometimes a quite rigid expectation, that within the culture we should all follow a highly regimented common path. This can, and often does, apply within our interpersonal relationships and especially marriages. It can, and often does demand, that one party accept a subservient relationship to the other. Often, but by no means always, the subservient role is expected of the female. It is hard, real hard, (all but impossible?) to get in touch with and express one’s individual developmental imperative in such a situation. Someone may want to attempt the argument that then the subservient person is experiencing that difficulty then that is their developmental imperative at that moment (to learn it is impossible to experience self-actualization while being rigidly held to someone else’s expectations and rules?). What do you think?

Within healthy interpersonal relationships we often take on obligations. Couples take on the obligation of maintaining a household, raising children, working together toward common goals. Honoring one’s own developmental imperative does not mean being defiantly independent and resisting all cooperative efforts and arrangements in our lives. It does mean being in touch with and honest with ourselves. Honoring what we know to be our essential orientations and needs. When partners recognize this reality within their own and their partner’s life, and when the individual orientations and needs are not incompatible with the needs that exist within the partnership, then all’s well. As a matter of fact, it’s better than well, it’s excellent.

The only way it gets any better is when partners within a relationship not only recognize and honor one another’s individual developmental imperatives, but take an active interest in seeing one another succeed in expressing them.

Today in the world at large we see individual developmental imperatives being honored, or neglected, to varying degrees. Some cultures all but totally reject it. When a brutally enforced totalitarian expectation of conformity is present, individual developmental imperative hides in fear. Or there may be martyrs in it’s name. The individual developmental imperative seems to most often demand our attention by being gently insistent. However, if continually repressed there can be pressure that builds up behind it. It can cry out within our being for recognition and expression.

The same is true within families, or interpersonal relationships and marriages. It can require determination and personal effort in developing knowledge and reason for individual developmental imperative to find fertile ground. Personal insecurities can get in the way of one’s own ability to express one’s developmental imperative and it can cause us to try to repress it in others. Within close relationships knowledge of one another combined with trust and reliability are important.

We don’t come into this world “blank slates”. We arrive with a developmental imperative already well underway. Our spirit, our mind, our nervous system are already geared for the path that will serve us the best. And, if we are happy and accomplished at a skill which brings enlightenment, joy, and increased turn-on to life and well-being to others…then it is a win-win-win situation.

Again, there is work involved, and discipline. Work and discipline are not bad things when applied to the expression of that which we deeply love and seek to honor with our being. In that context work and discipline feel right and we recognize the value they can add to our achieving that which we desire.

*So why the asterisk, the caveat? Because there is something we need to acknowledge and honor in order to preserve our individual ability to access, explore and fulfill our lives. It is really very simple: we need to acknowledge and honor the basic needs and lives of everyone else as if they were our own. Which means if we perceive our developmental imperative as requiring us to harm others, to inflict physical, psychological and/or spiritual harm: mutilation, deprivation, destruction, upon others, then we need to rethink how we are interpreting our perceptions. It is likely that if we find ourself having such thoughts that they are an expression of anxiety and fear. Emotions often stemming from, at sometime in our past, our having been harmed, significantly physically, psychologically and/or emotionally mistreated. And/or quite possibly that we are suffering from a neurological impairment resulting from an insult to our brain. Possibly from a physical or chemical insult, or resulting from experiencing significant prolonged stress. What is needed is an experience of pervasive healing: and that experience will not manifest by harming others.

It has been going on for some time. However it seems to have taken off in earnest during the last couple years. Allegations have been surfacing of high-level, elected or appointed, government officials committing heinous crimes. Sometimes the allegations involve many people, implying that if the crimes actually occurred or are occurring, they involve a conspiracy. Often these allegations include further allegations of cover-ups involving even more elected or appointed government officials.

The reactions from the general pubic are usually very mixed to these allegations. The reasons people might react as they do can be as varied as the lives and backgrounds of the people themselves. However, there are some phenomenon we understand about human thinking which often enter into the underlying reasons people either tend to believe or disbelieve such allegations.

Some tend to disbelieve or ignore them because they have been taught by trusted and beloved authority figures, since childhood, to respect and believe in the goodness of those occupying the highest offices in the United States of America.

Some may tend to disbelieve simply because they “like” the accused for some reason or another. Maybe the accused supports some issue which that person feels strongly about. Maybe the accused dresses stylishly and has a pleasant manner about them.

Some tend to disbelieve or ignore the allegations because to give the allegations serious consideration creates such cognitive dissonance they cannot stand it.

Some tend to disbelieve because the evidence they have seen does not rise to a level lending them to consider the allegations as having veracity.

On the other hand…

Some tend to believe the allegations because they simply do not like something about the government officials implicated. It could be the accused doesn’t belong to the correct political party, or the accused lacks style or smoothness in their life or personal presentation.

Some tend to believe the allegations because the accused supports some policy or cause which the person finds offensive.

Some may tend to believe the allegations because the evidence they have seen lends them to believe the allegations are true.

In the absence of any specific first hand experiences or knowledge about what is being alleged, it is the background experiences of the observers, the people who constitute the general public, that are going to determine that person’s initial reaction to any such allegations. Lacking any authentic investigation into the allegations, the public is left unsure, contentiously holding onto their own personal opinions, divided.

So what? What else is new…right? However, it matters.

When the population of a neighborhood, a city, a nation, or a world is divided, the “house” is divided. And as the profound saying which Abraham Lincoln borrowed from Mark 3:25 goes: “If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” (NIV) Why is it important for our “house” to stand? It is because it is as a group, as a cooperative whole, that we can do the things that contribute to making our world the wondrous and exciting place it is. Our roads, airplanes, trains, the products that genuinely make our lives less tedious and give us more ability to enjoy the beauty of our world and each other, the advances in technology and medicine that have such potential to better our lives: none of us alone can bring these things to reality. It has only been by working together for our own and the common good that these things have come into being. And it is when we lose sight of what is in our own and the common good that our cultures begin to deteriorate. It is then that we begin to bicker, and fight amongst ourselves, divided.

The allegations matter, knowing whether they are true or untrue matters. What do we do when, and/or if, those controlling our laws and the enforcement of our laws use their power to give themselves exemptions from the laws the rest of us are expected to adhere to? Or begin constructing the laws to favor themselves above all others? Initially it isn’t good for us, the general citizenry, in the long run it’s not good for anyone.

Without digressing into another entire article, suffice to say, science is able to confirm for us today what some within the field of spiritual well-being have been saying for a long time: we live within a unified field. We’re all interconnected, interdependent. And it’s not just the human race that is interconnected: it’s all of existence, everything. Never before in recorded human history has it been possible to say with greater certainty: “United we stand, divided we fall.”

It is also the case that, due to the seriousness of the potential ripples throughout our society, there ought to be some penalty for anyone bringing patently false allegations against anyone in high office. That being said, we cannot simply disregard allegations because we may think them unlikely. We need to know whether allegations of heinous cruelty and crimes leveled against public officials are true or untrue because if those in high office hold contempt for humanity, contempt for good will; is that the value we want to see directing our resources, directing us as a people? The essential spiritual, not religious, but spiritual orientation of those to whom we entrust high office is of the utmost import to each and every one of us.

What sort, what nature, of spiritual energy do we want to see people exerting, do we want to allow people to exert, especially as leaders, directors of nations and their resources, upon the events taking place in our world?

For these reasons, and others, we cannot allow serious allegations of heinous behavior; allegations of corruption; graft, influence peddling, rape, pedophilia, murder, on the part of our elected/appointed officials and others to go uninvestigated, unexamined. At this time those “investigating” such allegations are likely as not themselves taking orders from those they are supposed to be investigating. Or, taking orders from third parties who are directing both them and the elected/appointed officials they are supposed to be investigating. So-called investigations are happening in a superficial and ineffective manner. While there may be some public aspect to the investigations: a floor show of reassurance, an attempt to appease the public without actually rocking the boat of those in power, the actual investigations, if any do occur, are hidden from public view.

What we also see happening often today often the media is brought to bear and public attention is redirected from the allegations themselves to the question of who committed the “offense” of exposing them. This pattern of behavior, of looking to find and punish the “snitch”, is one that has long been a characteristic of criminal enterprises. I haven’t spoken about this with many but I highly doubt I’m the only one troubled by how often this mind-set seems to be the one demonstrated by those in high office.

It’s not about who should go to prison. Although, some of the allegations definitely have public safety issues. Maybe some, if guilty, do require confinement until we can be reasonably certain they won’t continue the heinous behaviors no matter what their socio-economic situation. However, the heart of what is at stake is the nature and direction of the spirit of our communities, our nations. The values held by those in high office, which they express in word and/or deed, manifest themselves in the physical, mental and spiritual health of our communities, our lives.

Whether we tend to be of the opinion that those in high office accused of heinous crimes are most likely innocent or guilty, we need to speak out and demand honest, thorough, authentic, investigations into the allegations. Investigations with 100% transparency that are open for the world to see. Then we can address whatever the investigations reveal, unseat any who are abusing the power which we allow, which we bestow. Put the issues to rest and move on with greater certainty and in greater unity.

If we make it known, make it undeniably clear that We the People will not tolerate behaviors on the part of those in high office which demonstrate a contempt for humanity, we will be a step closer to establishing a culture for ourselves, for our children, in which we can experience, enjoy our lives with greater health, wholeness and stability.